The field of the present disclosure relates generally to providing updated on-file data (e.g., billing data) to merchants, and more particularly, to proactive identification of unrequested on-file data based on historical authorization messages.
The payment card industry includes payment transactions wherein a payment cardholder makes a purchase, but the physical payment card is not present. These transactions are known as “card-not-present” (CNP) transactions. In such transactions, information regarding the payment card, including an account number and, in many instances, an expiration date for the payment card is transmitted from a merchant, along with an indicator that the transaction is a CNP transaction. An “account-on-file” transaction is a type of transaction in which the merchant stores information regarding the cardholder's payment card in a database, then retrieves the stored payment card information and includes it in at least one authorization request. One specific type of account-on-file transactions is a “recurring payment transaction”, which a merchant initiates on a recurring basis for a particular cardholder. In such recurring payment transactions, the merchant stores information regarding the cardholder's payment card in a database, then retrieves the stored payment card information and includes it in each recurring authorization request. In addition to recurring payment transactions, merchants may also maintain account-on-file information to facilitate payment card transactions by repeat customers. For example, an online merchant may allow a shopper to create an online account and store billing data corresponding to one or more methods of payment. When the shopper is ready to check out and complete a purchase, the shopper may simply select one of the stored payment methods as opposed to having to reenter their payment card information.
A downside of storing payment card information, however, is that information regarding a payment card is subject to change. For example a cardholder's payment card might expire, causing a new payment card to be issued with a new expiration date while the card number remains the same. In such instances, an authorization request for a transaction containing the outdated expiration date would be denied by the issuer of the payment card. As a result, the merchant who originally submitted the authorization request is prevented from successfully obtaining payment until the merchant acquires the updated expiration date for the payment card. Due to wide adoption of the account-on-file payment model by merchants and cardholders, it is understandably difficult for a cardholder to update each merchant with new payment card expiration dates. Likewise, it reduces the benefits of the account-on-file payment model to require a merchant to inquire with each cardholder for an updated payment card expiration date prior to submitting each payment authorization request.